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Kevin Schnepf

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FARGO -- Al Hager remembers the 1970s watching North Dakota State football games at old Dacotah Field — sometimes sunny, usually cold and windy; sometimes filled with fans, often abandoned with ice-covered empty seats; and a scoreboard with light bulbs that provided the score ... and that was about it. Saturday night in the Fargodome, the 68-year-old Hager was sitting in his usual spot in Section 29 of the north endzone seats. Below him on Gate City Bank Field was the college football season opener between NDSU and Charleston Southern.

FARGO -- When golfers convene in Fargo on Sunday and Monday for the 33rd Annual Roger Maris Celebrity golf tournament, you can bet someone, somewhere on Edgewood golf course will argue that Maris should be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. For the last four decades, support for Fargo’s most famous sports hero to become a Hall of Famer has come and gone. We’ve heard it over and over. The man who broke Babe Ruth’s 34-year-old single-season home run record should be a Hall of Famer. Maris did that in 1961 with 61 homers.

FARGO — Devan Douglas was on top of the college basketball world. Representing the University of Mary in Bismarck, Douglas wowed fans gathered in Houston for last spring’s NCAA Final Four by winning a slam dunk contest. “It was unbelievable,” said Douglas, who outdunked seven other college players including those from big-time schools like UNLV, Tulsa and Mississippi State. Eleven days later, Douglas’ mother — at the age of 40 — passed away after battling a long illness.

FARGO -- North Dakota State’s football program is scheduling games for the distant future. And it appears that future is going to include big-time programs from the Pac-12 Conference. After announcing Thursday, June 23, that it will play a 2024 opener at Colorado, NDSU now has two Pac-12 schools on its future schedules. The Bison will play at Oregon on Sept. 5, 2020.

JAMESTOWN — Dickinson showed Fargo Davies why the Midgets could have been a top seed for this week’s North Dakota Class A state baseball tournament. Dickinson, which dropped from a No. 1 seed position to No. 3 in the West Region during the final week of the regular season, claimed a 14-4 opening-round win at Jack Brown Stadium on Thursday. “We knew that between Dickinson, Century and Bismarck, they were interchangable,” said Davies coach Hans Anderson. “We knew whoever we got in the first round, it was going to be tough and Dickinson certainly put the bat on the ball today.”

FARGO — There are pro football gurus nationwide who wonder, and justifiably so, how Carson Wentz — a potential No. 1 or No. 2 pick at this week’s NFL draft — did not start as a freshman or sophomore at North Dakota State? There are Bison football gurus who can answer that quickly with two words: Brock Jensen. “What are you going to do when you have Brock Jensen at quarterback and he’s winning national championships?” said Randy Hedberg, who became NDSU’s quarterbacks coach after Jensen graduated.

FARGO -- The Summit League is hoping history repeats itself in Spokane, Wash., this week. That’s where South Dakota State, the Summit League men’s basketball champion, will play Maryland on Friday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. That’s where North Dakota State upset Oklahoma in the first round of the 2014 NCAA Tournament. Saul Phillips remembers that game as if it were yesterday.

FRISCO, Texas — Carson Wentz, a potential NFL quarterback who may or may not play in his final college football game Saturday, had what his coach called a real bad head cold Thursday. It was bad enough that Wentz opted to skip North Dakota State's media-day interviews.

FARGO -- Bob Stitt had reason to be giddy last August in the smoke-filled mountains of Montana. He just saw his University of Montana football claim a 38-35 win over North Dakota State—the four-time defending national champions. He could not have asked for a better way to end his first game as the Grizzlies’ head coach. He could not have asked for a better way to get folks in Missoula jacked up again for a football program that has produced two national championships and five runner-up finishes. But the last title came in 2001 and the last runner-up finish in 2009.

FARGO — Dave Richman was imagining where his desk would go in his future office Tuesday afternoon. One window will provide him a view of Dacotah Field and the Shelly Ellig indoor track building. Another window provides him a view of the basketball practice facility. It will be awhile before Richman will move into his new digs. But in about a week or so, he and his North Dakota State men’s basketball team will be moving to the new practice facility and locker rooms.